Grating the Nutmeg

In this episode, architectural historian Mary Donohue and podcast engineer Patrick O'Sullivan explore the Hartford work of early twentieth century architect Donn Barber especially his magnificent Connecticut State Library building and two of the city's early skyscrapers. Her guest, retired Connecticut State Librarian Ken Wiggin, explains how Barber got the plum commission to design the Connecticut...

Spurred by Abraham Lincoln's campaign stop in Hartford in March 1860, the Wide Awake movement spread from Connecticut throughout the North like wildfire. In this episode of  Grating the Nutmeg,  the Connecticut Historical Society's Natalie Belanger takes a look at this pivotal youth movement of the Civil War era. Listen to find out how this home-grown political movement and their signature torchli...

March is Women's History Month and in this episode publisher Elizabeth Normen talks with author Eve Kahn about her 2019 book, Forever   Seeing New Beauties: The Forgotten Impressionist Mary Rogers Wiliams,1857 - 1907 (Wesleyan University Press, 2019). It's a rare insider view of the challenges women artists faced in the late 19th century. Kahn drew from a collection of Williams's gossipy letters h...

Forty years ago, a freshman legislator in the Connecticut General Assembly wrote and engineered passage of one of the most important pieces of consumer protection legislation in history – The Lemon Law (actually two laws passed in 1982 and 1984) that required automobile manufacturers to repair defective vehicles in a timely manner, replace the vehicle with a new one, or refund the customer's purch...

As we all ease into 2022, we want to thank our listeners for supporting Grating the Nutmeg! We've just had our 6th birthday and hit over 100,000 downloads! We couldn't have done it without you. Be sure to let us know if there are topics you think we should investigate. If you could manufacture something out of stone or metal and make a buck, chances are it was produced in Connecticut. Asst. Publis...

In this episode, Connecticut Historical Society's Natalie Belanger, frequent contributor to Grating the Nutmeg, talks with Antoinette Brim-Bell, Professor of English at Capital Community College, about Ann Plato, one of the first Black women to publish a book in the United States. Ann Plato is part of Capitol Community College's NEH-funded Hartford Heritage Project which highlights the history of...

Is there a sucker born every minute? I don't have the answer to that but it is attributed to one of Connecticut's most famous residents, circus showman P. T. Barnum. Did he really say it-no one knows for sure but we do know that he made and lost several fortunes, helped to create the American circus, exhibited a phony mermaid cobbled together from a monkey and a fish and that he loved Bridgeport!...

In the spirit of the season, we're pleased to present a Victorian era Christmas story, written by the celebrated 19th century author from Guilford, Reverend William Henry Harrison Murray. Better known as "Adirondack" Murray, because his books almost single-handedly transformed that region from a New York wilderness to one of the country's most popular tourist destinations, Murray was one of the fi...

Natalie Belanger of the Connecticut Historical Society is joined by historian Barbara Sicherman, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor Emerita at Trinity College, to discuss the landmark reproductive rights case,  Griswold v. Connecticut . Professor Sicherman talks about the origins of the lawsuit, what it meant for women in our state, and its long-term influence on civil rights rulings.    If you wa...

Recently, Connecticut State Historian Walt Woodward announced he will be retiring next July 1st. To find out what "historical"  retirement is like, Woodward sat down with Nick Bellantoni, who retired as state archaeologist in 2014, and is now Connecticut's state archaeologist emeritus. The resulting conversation was a fascinating discussion of archaeological sites in Connecticut, Nick's successor...

What more do we need to know about Sam Colt? In Hartford we have the iconic blue-domed Colt Armory, Colt Park, the Colt addition to the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Church of the Good Shepard and Colt's home Armsmear. But it turns out that we may not have known much about Colt's life before he became fabulously wealthy—he traveled with a novelty act, womanized, drank, smuggled guns to Russia, bribed po...

A Connecticut Historian Makes History:  Recovering Phyllis Wheatley's Lost Years   UCONN legal historian Cornelia Hughes Dayton was searching through Massachusetts Court cases from the 1700s, working on a project involving mental disabilities in early America, when she came upon a find that was itself history-making:  a cache of court cases that illuminate the formerly "missing years" in the life...

Are you your family's historian? The one that listens to all the elders' stories or digs into that big box of old family photographs? Ever wonder how many of your dad's stories are really true? Or if you have a big family secret that hasn't been revealed for generations? If so, this episode is for you! In celebration of National Archives Month, we're talking to two accomplished family historians....

History has often been described as the present having a conversation with the past. Meet Kevin Johnson, who makes those conversations both real and personal: as a Technical Assistant in the History and Genealogy unit of the Connecticut State Library in Hartford; as William Webb, a Civil War volunteer in the 29th Connecticut Colored Volunteer infiantry; and as Jordan Freeman, the African American...

In this episode, join Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of  Connecticut Explored , for a discussion with Dr. Helen Sheumaker about Victorian jewelry and wreaths made from human hair. Dr. Sheumaker is the author of  Love Entwined: The Curious History of Human Hair Work.  She teaches history and American Studies at Miami University of Ohio. Find out more about this now unfashionable way to remember your...

What do the nineteenth century author Lydia Sigourney, the 18th century hero-turned-traitor Benedict Arnold, and the Revolutionary War battle of Bunker Hill have in common? They all come together in the story you are about to hear from Sigourney's 1824 book SKETCH OF CONNECTICUT FORTY YEARS SINCE . Sigourney's book, written early in her career, is a rare historical treat: a tale by a future-famous...

In this episode, join Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of Connecticut Explored, for a discussion with Pablo Delano, visual artist, photographer and professor of fine arts at Trinity College - and the artist behind the new book Hartford Seen,  published in 2020 by Wesleyan University Press. His work is featured in the photo essay "Visually Breathtaking Hartford Explored" in the Summer 2021 issue of Co...

In this special summer episode we visit Frank and Lisa Catalano, who in their 18th-century home garden in Lebanon, are using some very inventive approaches to bring back an old Connecticut tradition – self-sufficient food production. It's a history show for garden geeks . . . or maybe a garden show for history geeks. 

In this episode, Dr. Leah Glaser and students from her 2021 Public History class at Central Connecticut State University present stories about the state's witness trees — a project that evolved out of a semester-long class on local and community history. Trees are central characters in the state's history, myths and legends. They witnessed the changing environmental, political, social, economic, a...

State Historian Walt Woodward talks with award-winning author and materials scientists Ainissa Ramirez about her award-winning and highly acclaimed book The Alcehmy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another.  On virtually every national Top Science Book of the Year List for 2020, The Alchemy of Us is a wonderfully readable, lively, smart and witty account of the development of eight inv...

 Lives of the state's LGBTQ citizens have moved from being hidden and solitary to claiming visible, powerful, valuable, and contributing places in society. In this episode, Mary Donohue, Asst. Publisher of C onnecticut Explored , interviews CCSU Assistant Professor of History William J. Mann about when and how the LGBTQ movement started in Connecticut, what legislative goals and strategies drove t...

     In this episode, Josh Shanley – firefighter, paramedic, and Emergency Management Director for Northampton, Massachusetts, talks about the Great Connecticut RIver Flood of 1936, its devastating effects, long-term consequences, and the message it has for a world in climate change. Based on his new book,  Connecticut River Valley Flood of 1936  from the History Press. 

Connecticut Historical Society's Natalie Belanger talks with labor historian Steve Thornton of The Shoeleather History Project about Black baseball in Connecticut. Thornton is the author of Connecticut Explored's " African American Greats in Connecticut Baseball ," Summer 2018. Read or Watch More! To learn more about the Negro Leagues,  check out this recent talk  at the CT Historical Society by B...

No one knows more about transportation in Connecticut than historian, civil engineer, and highway and transportation planner Richard DeLuca. In this recent virtual lecture for Cheshire Public Library, promoting his new, second volume on Connecticut transportation history  Paved Roads and Public Money  (Wesleyan University Press), DeLuca underscores the inseparable relationships among population, t...

Visitors have been enchanted by the thousands of soft and fragrant rose petals in Elizabeth Park's Rose Garden since it opened in 1904. Climbing roses intertwined in overhead garlands, hybrid tea roses and heritage roses in every color symbolize romance, friendship, and passion. Elizabeth Park on the Hartford-West Hartford border is home to the country's oldest public rose garden. Visitors by the...